


Flower of Paradise

by BlackjackGabbiani



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:08:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8543689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackjackGabbiani/pseuds/BlackjackGabbiani
Summary: Sycamore visits Lysandre in the hospital, trying to bring a ray of sunshine into the sullen man's life. Talking about what he had attempted to do will have to wait.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kaleran](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaleran/gifts).



> Written for Kaleran on tumblr, for a fic exchange.

_“Two months after the calamity in the small town of Geosenge, Kalos police have announced that they’re giving up their search for missing CEO turned Flare mastermind Lysandre–”_

Augustine Sycamore heard the radio but paid it no mind, whistling as he approached the security station with a flash of his ID. After all, there wasn’t any need to search.

“I’m here to see monsieur Oiseau-du-Paradis.”

“Ah of course,” the desk clerk nodded, opening the first set of double doors with a wink. “It’s all over the news today, you know.”

“I keep hearing it. But of course,” and he drew a finger over his lips to indicate that he knew it was to be kept secret.

Past the second set of doors, the doctors and nurses simply waved. He’d become a daily sight in the hospital, first in the intensive care unit and then there in the psychiatric ward.

“They’re just finishing up with him now, Professor,” one of the residents said as they passed him. “PT’s been bumped up to an extra session.”

That Lysandre had survived at all was nothing short of miraculous, even if it had cost his Gyarados’s life to shield him from the rockslide. It had taken three days, but Pyroar and Mienshao slowly worked their way to the surface under cover of dark, waiting until outside voices had quieted so as to free their master in secret. And when the large Honchkrow had burst from the rubble balancing speed and safety in carrying the man, hardly anyone noticed, so focused were they on the rest of the town.

Though those had been the most difficult days of Sycamore’s life, they were past now, and there was a long road ahead.

He leaned against the wall outside Lysandre’s room, whistling the same tune and toying with the flower in his hand. He always brought a flower, knowing how much his friend liked them, and tried to bring a different one each day. Even the alias he’d worked out, Oiseau-du-Paradis, was a flower; the vaunted Bird of Paradise. It wasn’t much in the way of an imaginary surname but it worked for their purposes.

“All right, you can go in and see him now.”

At the therapist’s word, he nearly burst past, but thoughts caught up with actions and he asked the man’s pardon before doing so. “Aah, still in bed!” he announced to Lysandre, casts apparent beneath the thin covers. “I’ve never seen a businessman who spent so much time in bed!”

Lysandre grimaced as he always did during Sycamore’s attempts at lightening the mood. “Another day of this?”

“But of course! Here, for you!” The professor presented the flower with a flourish, holding it out.

“Augustine…you see that I can’t take it.” Lysandre nodded down to his arms, one in a bandage and the other in a cast. “You have seen that every day yet you still persist.”

“You’ll be able to take it someday, so until then I have to try! Now, the normal spot?” Flowers always went onto the mobile tray. In the beginning, before Lysandre had regained consciousness, they were always strong-scented flowers, something to lure him awake or at least penetrate the veil. Now they were picked mostly for appearance.

“A carnation.” Lysandre glared, though not fully. A full-on glare from that man could probably inflict paralysis at fifty paces. Sycamore made a mental note to look into the effects of human glares on pokémon. “Augustine, do you have any idea what symbolism a carnation bears?”

Sycamore stared so blankly that one could practically hear the wind whistle. “Um…they represent…springtime? Beauty? Nice…things…?”

Lysandre’s expression relaxed, though he was still rigid from the pain of therapy. “Love and grief. The passionate depths of human emotion. Just when I think you’re getting smarter…”

The professor pouted, knowing his friend didn’t mean it. Probably. “Diantha suggested it, and they were selling them right nearby the lab. But if you don’t want them–”

“I never said that.”

Sometimes the bluntness of Lysandre’s statements was enough to make Sycamore want to burst into laughter. This time it came out as a blubbering snort.

Lysandre sighed, easing past the point that a cracked rib had recently prevented him. Sycamore was annoying and painfully naive, but he was also the only person who wanted to give him another chance. So often he’d been tempted to tell Sycamore to leave, to never visit again, but as bold as his words had always been, that was something that had forever frozen in the back of his throat. “She told you that because carnations are in the dianthus family. The God Flower…”

Sycamore nodded merrily at the description, continuing to nod after Lysandre had trailed off, but snapped to attention. That was exactly the sort of thing he wasn’t about to permit. “So!” he shouted, diving for the bedside chair that the therapist had left behind, “I hear that you’re moving better, and you’ve started getting your meds adjusted. Tell me about that!”

The insistence was part of his charm, Lysandre supposed, despite it being flagrantly obvious why Sycamore had suddenly changed the subject. “As you know, Gyarados coiled itself very tightly around me, and that caused damage itself.”

“Mm-hmm,” Sycamore nodded again, thinking back to a time he’d been caught up in the coils of a very friendly Arbok and realizing that it was awfully a self-centered thought.

“As well as being drawn out of the center, which wrenched both arms and broke the right…ah, perhaps that seems ungrateful. I’ve thought a lot about that Gyarados since then…In a way, it embodied what I was attempting to do.”

Sycamore had wondered if Lysandre’s final actions in the cavern had been suicidal or simply incredibly reckless, but this wasn’t the time to ask. Nor was it the time for such discussion–that would be between Lysandre and the medical staff. “Ah, another day is the greatest gift we have. It’s the only thing, I’ve heard said, that we needn’t fight for. But tell me about your movement!”

Despite being still in casts, Lysandre raised one leg, then the other. “It isn’t much. I’ve told them to bring up an automated suit yet they refuse.”

That much was to be expected. Lysandre Labs were on lockdown until such time as their fate could be decided, with the Holo Caster falling to their star broadcaster Malva. Plus with what those kids had said about Lysandre and some other ‘automated suit’ in the depths of the weapon’s stronghold, it wasn’t something they could risk even if it could help him get out of that bed. “Well, some things can’t be helped,” Sycamore dismissed with a sigh.

“Everything could be helped, if the world wasn’t so…” But Lysandre sighed too, knowing the place was stacked against him if he started talking about the filth of the world again. He had no plans to be medicated against his will any further than he already was. “…What were you whistling before?”

“Hm?” It was one of the rare times Lysandre had asked him anything, and though it wasn’t anything personal, he still took anything that could be considered reaching out to be a breakthrough. “I’m not sure!” he declared enthusiastically. “I picked it up a while ago and can’t get it out of my head!”

“It was nice. Beautiful, really.”

Sycamore smiled and rested his hand against Lysandre’s cast. “I’ll try to find the rest of it, just for you. I’m glad to see you–” His initial thought had been 'glad to see you’ve come this far’ but Lysandre’s mental state was something neither of them could approach yet, for any number of reasons. “–you, just you. There’s so much that have to say to you, so much–”

“I will not change my position. I need for you to understand that. I did what I believe to be truly right and that is all.” They both fell silent, avoiding eye contact, until Lysandre added “though I appreciate your company. If only more people were like you.”

It had been brought to Sycamore’s attention by one of his assistants that had Flare’s plot succeeded, he wouldn’t have been among those chosen for survival, and he wanted to tell his friend–for after all this, Sycamore still considered Lysandre a friend–that there were so very many people who reached out to others, and that Lysandre himself had once been high among them, but he held his tongue. “…the flower shop will have poppies in soon. Do you like them?”

“The flower of eternal life, bloomed on the field of battle. Yes.”

Sycamore made a mental note to not bring any in for quite some time. “How about lilacs?”

“Haha…” Lysandre’s normally hearty laugh was marked by a wheeze, “You’re testing me, aren’t you? Lilacs are youth and innocence.”

“Then I’ll bring you some lilacs tomorrow, if they’re in. Do you do this every time I get you one?”

“Mentally. It wasn’t until I saw the carnation that I felt it necessary to comment on it.”

That set Sycamore alaugh again, with another snort. “You really do have a better sense of humor than people think.”

Lysandre’s brief levity had ended, however. “What people think. They think me dead, don’t they?”

The laugh ended as quickly as it had arrived. “They think you officially missing. Or that’s the statement anyway…yes. Yes, they do.” He sucked in a breath, remembering not to say anything about the search being called off. Even the vast majority of the police officials didn’t know the Flare leader had survived. “Diantha knows otherwise, as you knew.”

“Anyone else? Does Team Flare know? Anybody in its ranks?”

Sycamore thought very briefly, going through a short list that consisted basically of Malva and perhaps those two agents who refused to leave the barracks before looking around for a way to change the subject. “Hey, I see you have some breakfast left over! That looks like a nice orange there.”

“Ugh, Augustine!” It came out a bit too much like a wail for Lysandre’s satisfaction, the muscles in his abdomen still sensitive. “Fine, you can have it.”

“Not what I was after, but all right!” Sycamore set about peeling the fruit. “But I see there’s some pudding, and you’ve been getting a little scrawny lately.”

“Are you seriously going to–”

Sycamore had already gooped up a spoon and was sliding it through the air. “Airplane! It’s coming in for a landing!”

“I’m not doing this.”

“Come on, you hardly ate anything.” The spoon prodded against Lysandre’s lips. “Do I have to keep doing this or are you going to have a bite? Airplaaaaane~!”

“Rrrgh…” Hadn’t he suffered enough? This was humiliating.

“…Ok…” Sycamore whispered, as if he had read Lysandre’s mind. “I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t be so silly right now.” His head drooped slightly, his loose piled hair falling with the angle.

“There’s a lot you simply aren’t ready to hear,” Lysandre whispered. “That’s all there is to it.”

“If I’d been able to confront serious things, I’d have talked to you a while ago. I’d have put a stop to this…” Sycamore had arched forward in the chair, hands between his knees.

That hearty, rasped laugh again. “Do you think yourself some sort of magic wand, Augustine? The world must be preserved while its beauty still remains. A conversation can’t change the facts.” But a moment later he added “though we’ll be able to talk about it later.”

Sycamore jolted up, reenergized by the promise. “I’ll be here with bells on! Not literally!” The latter was emphasized by a toss of his hand, which sent the spoon he was still clutching clattering across the room.

“Augustine, had you been holding that the whole time?”

“…I um…yes. Yes, it seems, I was,” he decided after a quick check during which time he determined that he had somehow avoided spilling pudding on himself. “You startled me, both times, and I’ve had enough scares out of you lately to last a thousand years.”

Lysandre chuckled, relaxing again. “I don’t apologize for my actions or my beliefs, but yes, we will discuss them later, since we’re both here to do so.”

An apology would, of course, be nice, Sycamore thought, but that was probably the least of their issues. “I’m glad for that, at least. It gives us that next day, if nothing else.”

“If nothing else,” though the tone was lower and harsher. “…Augustine, I know you took my Mega Ring. Someday you will return it, and you will do so without question.” He sighed deeply, a placeholder before Sycamore could say anything. “In the meantime, keep it safe.”

“Ah, yes, that’s fine.” Sycamore had removed and hidden the Gyaradosite, something he felt quite giddy and clever over, so he had no qualms with returning the ring itself. “Say, I’ve still got an orange here if you want.”

“No airplanes.”

“No airplanes! I promise! Now here, a segment at a time.”

Grudgingly, Lysandre complied, accepting each piece in silence and trying to ignore Sycamore’s goofy grin. For his part, Sycamore kept back the reminder that there was only one orange and they shared it, neither taking sole ownership, in spite of what his students had told him that Lysandre had said about resources. Though he would certainly bring it up later.

“Now then.” Sycamore leaned back with a sigh, long legs splaying out in front of him as he turned parallel to Lysandre’s bed. “I was thinking we could do something. Is your left hand up to holding some cards?”

It wasn’t until later that Sycamore remembered that the tune he’d been whistling had been from the Honor of Kalos festival, something else he made a note to save until later.


End file.
